With Linux traditionally coming in many, many flavours, a common call among some Linux fans - but mostly among people who actually do not use Linux - is to standardise all the various distributions, and work from a single "one-distribution-to-rule-them-all". In a recent interview, Linus Tovalds discarded the idea, stating that he thinks "it's something absolutely required!"

It doesn't help anything if enterprises use RPM and endusers use DEB. As long as the distros themselves use different versions of libraries we are still screwed, and there will be dependencyhell between distributions. That is why library-versioning is so important in a package manager.

It doesn't help anything if enterprises use RPM and endusers use DEB. As long as the distros themselves use different versions of libraries we are still screwed, and there will be dependencyhell between distributions. That is why library-versioning is so important in a package manager.

You are really asking for the argument not to be settled by force majeure. That is, by 2-3 distros becoming so popular they are taken to be the norm and anyone who runs a distro that deviates from them is told "tough luck". Of course even that concentration of powers wouldn't solve the problem but it would be closer to a "one-library solution".

OTOH, there's every indication that this argument will be settled by force majeure. Partly because, so far, no one has come up with a compelling answer as to why it shouldn't be.